Multi-purpose environment awareness approach for single line laser scanner in a small rotorcraft UA

Kurzfassung

The work presents an environment awareness approach for a small rotorcraft unmanned aircraft (UA) which operates at low height using a single line laser scanner which enables a height estimation with a concurrent detection of ground fixed obstacles. The approach is suitable for small UA which are not able to carry complex and heavy 3D laser scanner mountings having additional drives or mirrors. It works without using external reference systems like DGPS. The approach was especially developed for a mission of the “International Micro Air Vehicle Conference” outdoor contest, where it is the aim to fly through a 6x6m artificial gate. The sensor data processing enables the height estimation above ground as well as the detection of obstacles in order to meet the mission’s goal. The height estimation enables a near-ground flight to prevent a collision with a top boundary of the gate, and a terrain following. The obstacle detection senses the pillars of the gate and finds a safe way through the narrow gate passage. The development and optimisation of the mounting and the sensor processing, as well as the validation, was realized under operational conditions with manual remote control (RC) helicopter flights and virtual flights at a simulation environment. The results of the experiments show that with this approach the mission can be fulfilled as a reliable ground estimation and object detection is ensured.